Motor vehicles are increasingly equipped with driver assistance systems, which include in particular comfort-oriented driver assistance systems and electronically controllable brake assist system, in particular with an emergency brake assist system.
Conventional driver assistance systems are generally activated and operated by the vehicle driver of the motor vehicle via corresponding operating elements or human-machine-interfaces (also called HMIs). In this context, conventional systems such as parking assistance systems detect the proximate traffic surroundings with the aid of ultrasonic sensors or video sensors and provide acoustic or visual feedback to the driver during a parking operation, and adaptive cruise control (ACC) recognizes preceding cars and adapts the distance and the speed of the host vehicle, and additionally implements a collision avoidance or collision mitigation function in the form of automatic brake application if an imminent risk of collision is detected based on the data from the surroundings sensors. However, these systems have already been previously installed in the vehicle by the vehicle manufacturer so that the individual system components are networked by cabling to one another and to other vehicle systems. Retrofitting into a vehicle has been previously impossible or possible only with great difficulty. Due to the individual adjustment to the respective vehicle type and due to the comprehensive safety regulations that must be complied with, such driver assistance systems are complex, inflexible, and cost intensive.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a driver assistance system for a motor vehicle, which conveys helpful information to the driver about objects located in the surroundings of the motor vehicle, which may be quickly and easily installed in a motor vehicle, even retroactively, and is thereby inexpensive and space saving.
Advantageous embodiments, variants, and refinements of the present invention are described herein.